Description

Maria Sutherland (circa 1782–1850) was the daughter of Margaret and Daniel Sutherland. The Sutherlands were friends of Berczy who had practiced his art extensively in Europe. Maria wears an Empire-waist dress, a hallmark of neo-classicism. The difference between her dress and the one worn by her mother, Margaret, in her portrait of 1792, reveals the remarkable shift in fashion in just over a decade. Maria would eventually marry James Hallowell (1778–1816) who, like her father, was heavily invested in the fur trade.